Plant growth fail

[Boyam]

i have had my plants for about one and a half months now and i feel the growth is not doing very well. i also believe this because of the algae problems i have had.

my swords are shrimpy (but bushy), about 6in tall. my whisteria which should grow like a weed is collecting algae and is maybe 7 inches tall with a bunch of sprouts at the bottom. these sprouts too have stayed low. all plants have plenty of roots, i pulled up a sword today to check out the roots and it had plenty.

i dont understand what going on i have 2.8 wpg, a good substrate, and a co2 system which keeps my water at 6.5-6.7ph. yet i have algae problems and my plants arent growing?

any ideas to what may be going on... please.

[ILLUSN]

OK first and formost is this a plant tank or a fish tank you need to decide beacuse balancing both (esp for discus) is near imposible unless the plant tank is VERY well established.

What type of lights are you using over your plants, if you have 2.8w of a green rich light like hagen life glo2's or blue light like an actinic or arctic white you'll get VERY poor growth.

whats your photoperiod aim for 10-12hrs

you say you have a good substrate, what is it, what it it defficient in (seachem flourite has NO macros and IME is useless with out suplimental iron and potasium).

you have CO2 how much are you pumping in use a pH/kH calc to work it out aim for 20ppm CO2, any less and your better off using florish excell for carbon.

whats your NO3, too much NO3 promotes algae and stunts plants aim for 10-20 MAX.

are you dosing trace elements daily?, if not start, especially iron there really is no such thing as too much.

if your using an airstone, stop, it will remove all your CO2 (disregard this if your keeping discus in your tank)

[DiscusDave]

Hi

You cannot really rely on KH/PH charts with tank water if there's any buffer in the water other than carbonates (i.e. Seachem Discus buffer esp). You really need to use a drop checker with KH4 reference solution. Otherwise you get interference and don't get an accurate reading.

I have discus in my planted tank with CO2 of 30ppm and only run air at night. The fish are fine so I don't see any problem turning the air off during the day. It's better for algae control to have constant CO2 levels during the light period. But you defn must use air at night or the fish do suffer.

Regards

Dave

[Boyam]

Well i use eco-complete substrate.

i run the lights for 10 hrs, with a hr break in the day. i recently did this to slow algae growth.

the co2 is meter controlled so it keep the ph at 6.7. when it is on (very often) its about 2-3 bubble a sec.

my lights are compact fluorescent. 2 bulbs are 6500k/10000k. and the other 2 are 10000k.

"Whats your NO3, too much NO3 promotes algae and stunts plants aim for 10-20 MAX. " if NO3 simply means nitrate the level is zero according to my kit.

i have not been adding any ferts besides the root tabs because liquid frightens me. only because im afraid the algae will take over.

[Noddy65]

Theres a good chance that your nitrates are the limiting factor here. Your substrate, lighting and CO2 sounds ok.
In most planted tanks you want your nitrates up around the 30 ppm (but lower is better if you have fish). Zero means that there are no nitrates or that the plants are using it as fast as its being produced or added (unlikely given the poor growth of the tank).
What kind of algae have you had? Algae is unfortunately one of those things that happens to mortals like us when we first set up a tank. You can control it by reducing the lights and ferts but it often results in slower plant growth.
If I was you I would start adding some nitrates and try and get my hands on 50 - 60 of those lovely algae eating shrimp (not sure what types you have in the US). Rosy Barbs are also great at eating many types of algae.

Good luck

Mike

[Boyam]

i would love to grab some shrimpies but the discus will munch them up!

[ILLUSN]

10000k globes are very rich in blue light which is useless to plants, 6500k can be ok as longas they are not too strong in the green spectrum (again useless to plants)

if your having algae problems through more wysteria in, it will keep all algae down.

if your using a phosphate based buffer STOP this is probably the source of the algae, use acid buffer by seachem of HCL instead of discus buffer or ph down (both contain phosphoric acid)

[Boyam]

never used a phosphate buffer.

what plant fert do you suggest? flourish or flourish excel? both? going to the store shortly to get some ferts and a bunch more plants until i get "established".

[Boyam]

bought some more wysteria waiting on input on which ferts to use. thanks again for all the input already. bugger trial and error :-p

[DiscusDave]

I think the main problem is you're turning on and off the CO2 using the controller - used to do this as well and the results were very poor. Most of the top planted tank specialists (Tom Barr and Takashi Amano in particular) insist on constant CO2 during the lighting period - to much light and too little CO2 is the prime cause of algae in their minds, not too much / too little phosphate or nitrate. You are far better off using a constant rate of injection when the lights are on. Otherwise the level of CO2 will be too low.

[Nitecongt]

i had poor plant growth for a while too, the plants had good root growth but just seemed to fade away slowly. but when i added a lot more depth to the gravel, they seemed to make a good recovery. still early days as i only did this a week ago but it seemed to make a differance.... imo adding more gravel has seemed to have an affect on how the plants are growing

[Boyam]

i have plenty of gravel, anymore i wouldn't have much water, lol. Thanks though for the input.

as the co2 controller goes, it just broke... go figure. so co2 is now on when the lights are. im just afraid now my ph will jump around... sigh.

plants still are not as they should. they are growing though, and i have been adding flourish. algae is still showing itself, bugger it>.<. i also added additional plants as ILLUSN recommended.

wish me luck.

[ILLUSN]

hold off onn liquid fertz till your algae goes away, you can use excell as its just a carbon souce, what you could add is some potasium nitrate from a hydroponis store. start off with .2g/ after each water change(get a small measuring spoon) and gradually up it to aout 1/2 a tsp, the extra nitrogen and potasium should help.